Email Marketing Metrics Report

How Scheduling Affects Rates

October 2014 Edition

Message scheduling is one of the many factors that affect an email campaign's open and click rates. Our findings have revealed that recipients respond differently to messages depending on the day of the week and the time of day that they are scheduled. With this in mind, email marketers can improve their campaign performance by adjusting their sending schedule.

Note: The results of this survey have been altered to reflect the local time of the sender.

Average Open and Click Rate by Day

Monday experienced the highest open rates during both halves of 2013. During H1, it yielded a 12% open rate, while in H2 it yielded a 12.9% open rate. At 11.5%, Tuesday had the second-highest open rate in H1. Friday took the second-place spot in H2 with an open rate of 12.2%. These results differ from last year's findings in which Tuesday performed well during both H1 and H2.

The weekends experienced the lowest open rates in H1, with 9.9% on Saturday and 10.3% on Sunday. During the second half of the year, the lowest open rates occurred on Sunday (9.6%) and Thursday (11.5%). This was a significant change from 2012, in which the lowest open rates in H1 and H2 came on Sunday and Saturday, respectively.

While Sunday scored poorly in the open rate rankings, it did much better with click rates. It had the highest figure in H1 (2.2%), and tied with Tuesday for the second-highest rate in H2 (2.1%). Tuesday also took second in H1 as well, with a click rate of 1.7%. Friday's 2.2% click rate garnered it the top slot in H2.

Saturday experienced the lowest click rate in H1 (1%), while Monday and Wednesday tied for the lowest rate in H2 (1.7%).

Average Open Rate by Day

Average Click Rate by Day

Average Open and Click Rate by Day

Average Open and Click Rate by Time Scheduled

The chart below shows the average open and click rates for messages versus the time at which they were scheduled for delivery. Keep in mind that the opens and clicks did not necessarily occur at the scheduled delivery time. For instance, a message scheduled for delivery in the early evening may not have been opened until the following morning.

For H1, the highest open rates occurred for messages scheduled for delivery at 11 p.m. (18%), 12 a.m. (21.9%), and 1 a.m. (17.8%). For the second half of 2013, open rates peaked for messages scheduled for delivery at 6 p.m. (15.9%), 9 p.m. (15.9%), and 11 p.m. (15.7%). The lowest open rate in H1 came from messages scheduled for delivery at 4 a.m (9.5%). In H2, the lowest open rate occurred with messages scheduled for delivery at 5 p.m. (8.5%).

During the first half of 2013, messages scheduled for delivery at 12 a.m. experienced the highest click rate of 6.6%. The early evening hours of H1 also fared well, with scheduled delivery times of 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. scoring click rates of 4.1% and 4.5% respectively. H2 saw similar results for messages scheduled in the early evening, although there was no comparable 12 a.m. outlier. The highest click rates during H2 occurred with messages scheduled for delivery at 6 p.m. (3.6%), 7 p.m. (3.3%) and 9 p.m. (3.3%).

The lowest click rate in H1 came from messages scheduled for delivery at 10 a.m. (1.2%). In H2, click rate bottomed out for messages scheduled for delivery at 4am (0.8%). Overall, our findings revealed a tendency toward lower click rates for messages scheduled for delivery during normal business hours.

Average Open Rate by Time Scheduled

Average Click Rate by Time Scheduled

Average Open and Click Rate by Time Scheduled

Average Open Rate by Time of Day

Open rates began to escalate at 3 a.m., and peaked around 10 a.m. at 6.5%. From there, they fell slowly over the course of the day. Overall, emails were most likely to be opened earlier in the day, between 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Average Open Rate by Time of Day

Note: The 'Average Open and Click Rate by Time Scheduled' and 'Average Open Rate by Time of Day' graphs only refer to messages sent from U.S. accounts.